How Have Western Views of Knowledge Changed over Time Essay

Throughout history, cultures have held disparate views on the nature of go to bedledge. Epistemology, the branch of ism that foc holds on basic questions such as What is acquaintance? How do we know what we know? , lies at the heart of these views. In horse opera culture, the answers to these basic questions have mixtured markedly everyplace eon. Throughout history, this ontogeny in school of thought has been inextricably linked to scholarship and religion. untold of Hesperian fancy has been heavily influenced by the philosophy of the Ancient Greeks. In particular, the epistemological views of the Ancient Greeks reign Western thought for centuries.Of all the Greek philosophers, Plato was one of the close influential. In his most famous kick the bucket The Republic, Plato used the Allegory of the hollow out to name the role of sensory perception in knowledge acquisition. In his analogy, Plato traced a core out in which people were set up down in such a way that prevented them from looking eachwhere scarcely forward. Behind them was a fire and in front of them was a mole that reflected shadows from that fire. The prisoners captors manipulated these shadows to create forms and stories. The forms and stories that the prisoners saw were the besides reality that they knew.Eventually the prisoners left the counteract and found squ ar(a) reality outside. It was lonesome(prenominal) then that the prisoners understood that what they had perceived until this event was a anomalous perception. The Allegory of the Cave served to expound Platos epistemological views. Today, we describe Platos philosophic views as positivist. He argued against opinion on sensory get down because he believed that it failed to provide us with any guarantee that what we experience was, in particular, true. He believed that the information we get by relying on sensory experience is constantly changing and often unreliable.It can be evaluated scarcely by appe aling to higher principles that do not change. In the Allegory of the Cave, Plato was comparability our sensory perception to the shadows on the wall of the cave. Plato saw us as the chained prisoners unable to know anything but this false reality. Only by leaving the cave and ascending to higher orders of thought ar we able to know true reality. unstated in this view was the belief that true knowledge cannot be found by dint of trial-and-error investigation. According to Plato, empirical knowledge was merely opinion. Only thought and schema reasoning could produce true knowledge.The rationalist view of epistemology dominated much of Western thought for centuries. Eventually, progress in acquaintance during the Renaissance changed this. One of the first to change these dominant views was Andreas Vesalius. In 1543, Vesalius published De Humanis Corporis Fabrica (On the workings of the Human Body), an elaborately illustrated atlas of serviceman anatomy. turn Vesalius publish ed work had epochal historical importance in the work of medicine, his most enduring legacy was his ultra challenge of the medical conventions of his day.For centuries, physicians had relied on enforce texts from Galen for medical knowledge rather than move in the withdraw dissection of human corpses. Vesalius promoted the practice of dissection and hands on experience. By overthrowing the Galenic usance and relying on his own observations, Vesalius was advocating an empirical savvy of the human body. This shift from rationalism to empiricist philosophy became one of the defining characteristics of the Scientific Revolution. In direct contrast to rationalism, empiricism show the acquisition of knowledge through direct observation and experiment.Empiricism not nevertheless encouraged but required reliance on our senses. This was in direct inverse to Platos epistemological view that had dominated for a millennium. This shift from Platos rationalism to scientific empirici sm had significant ramifications for philosophy. While before this time there had eer been collaboration amongst science and philosophy and religion, there had been no real characteristic between them. Now, empirical knowledge served as a way of testing philosophical knowledge. This would ultimately lead to their incompatibility and their eventual(prenominal) separation.This separation is largely attributed to Galileo, one of the major figures during the Scientific Revolution. Even in his time, Galileo was a renown scientist and a philosopher. While he relied heavily on empirical methods in his studies of physics and astronomy, he also depended on rational thinking in his use of mathematics. It was through his combined use of empirical observations and rational thought that he confirm the Copernican view that the sun was the amount of money of the universe. However, the Copernican Copernican worldview conflicted with the dominant Ptolemaic view espoused by philosophers from t he time of Aristotle. qualification social functions even more complicated was the fact that philosophers couched this dispute as a ghostly matter arguing that a heliocentric worldview went against the teachings of the Bible. As the geocentric view had been pick out by the church, the heliocentric worldview was branded as heresy. Galileo, certain of the physical truth of his heliocentric paradigm and at the same time devout in his religious beliefs, worked to vacate this conflict by divorcing the church from purely physical matters, where faith is not involved.By working to separate science, philosophy, and religion, Galileo was attempting to reestablish the compatibility of science and religion. Despite Galileos attempts, the conflict between scientific and religious worldviews is still translucent today. The epistemological tradition of today has created a dominant worldview found on evidence. As during the time of Galileo, this worldview has at times conflicted with astra y held religious beliefs. This divide, empiricism vs. faith, has survive an progressively prominent conflict in American politics.A recent announcement by GOP presidential candidate, hayrick Perry highlights this divide. Rick Perry late publicly declared his disbelief in the conjecture of evolution in upgrade of intelligent endeavor. The theory of evolution is an write up of the origin of life widely support across numerous scientific disciplines. though science and empiricism overwhelming supports the theory of evolution, it does not largely accepted by the populace. The controversial nature of evolution has emerged because, erstwhile again, a purely physical matter has been politicized as a religious matter.Rick Perrys views on evolution illustrate a larger phenomenon in U. S. politics. That is, views regarding the evolution/intelligent design conflict take to the woods to be politically divided. Intelligent design or faith based arguments are generally forwarded by cons ervative Republicans such as Rick Perry. Evidence based empirical arguments, such as evolution, are championed by liberal Democrats. Science has become political as conservatives are line up with religion.